Evocation [PBP]
[This is a post for the Pagan Blog Project]
Evoke vs Invoke. It’s an interesting balance. There’s a whole LOT of grey area between the two words, and that’s without bringing any magical meaning to them! Since this is the ‘E’ post for PBP, I’m going to focus on ‘evoke’ in this post!
Both words talk about some kind of summoning, but the difference is the involvement of you. When you evoke something, you call the being to join you, but as an external entity. It’s not part of you, joined with you, or channeled through you.
For example, when you call in a Gatekeeper in an ADF ritual, or you call the Watchtowers in a Ceremonial ritual, you are evoking the entities to guard and protect your ritual space. In most rituals, non-human (and previously-human) entities are called in by evoking. We don’t generally call the beings into ourselves, or to speak through us.
As an example, here’s an evocation for Freyja that I wrote a while back
Lady Freyja, Lover, Warrior,
Leader of the Valkeries
Holder of Brisingamen
We call to you, Lady Chooser,
To lend your aid to us this night
In this evocation, we call upon the Lady Freyja in her aspect as the Chooser of the Slain to assist in the ritual that we’re about to do.
Because we don’t call the entities into ourselves, evoking is significantly safer than invoking, and is much more suitable for beginner magicians! Write your own evocations, or use someone else’s words, but try it out!
References
Evoke & Invoke on grammarist.com
Evoke & Invoke on about.com